Racial stereotypes in Katrina commentary
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Pundits attacked rapper Kanye West for declaring in a September 2 NBC telethon that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” John Gibson, as guest host of Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor (9/9/05), and Tucker Carlson on MSNBC’s The Situation With Tucker Carlson (9/15/05) both misquoted West, proposing that he said Bush “hates black people.” (Gibson and Carlson were quickly corrected by their guests, professor Michael Eric Dyson and rapper Chuck D, respectively.)
These commentators perpetuate the stereotype that African-Americans who question the white establishment are self-promoting, unreasonable and non-credible. The irony here—that these dismissals of racism themselves echo racist stereotypes—points to the way Americans’ denial of their prejudices can perpetuate the very bigotry they disavow.
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Pundits attacked rapper Kanye West for declaring in a September 2 NBC telethon that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” John Gibson, as guest host of Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor (9/9/05), and Tucker Carlson on MSNBC’s The Situation With Tucker Carlson (9/15/05) both misquoted West, proposing that he said Bush “hates black people.” (Gibson and Carlson were quickly corrected by their guests, professor Michael Eric Dyson and rapper Chuck D, respectively.)
These commentators perpetuate the stereotype that African-Americans who question the white establishment are self-promoting, unreasonable and non-credible. The irony here—that these dismissals of racism themselves echo racist stereotypes—points to the way Americans’ denial of their prejudices can perpetuate the very bigotry they disavow.
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